Operation Restore Hope swept up 44 people and 279 computers and other devices across Georgia on Tuesday as federal, state and local law enforcement officers tried to make a dent in child pornography that is spread computer to computer.

For three months agents have been tracking known child porn threads from the GBI’s offices in Cleveland. The sweeps began around daybreak Tuesday.

The images are disturbing, Keenan said.

For example, there are some in which infants are being molested and one in which “the images involve the rape of a 4-year-old male child," the director said.

“[In] previous experiences, some of the offenders have children in the home and they have been manufacturing their own child pornography,” Keenan said. “The child pornography that they are pursuing is known child pornography -- certain files or certain images.”

In another case, Keenan said agents entered a house to find that the same child seen in the pornographic images was actually in the home.

Whitaker said data shows Georgia ranks fifth in the number of “devices” used to transmit or receive child pornography. “We are only getting 2 percent of what’s out there,” he said.